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Capacity today vs. WWII
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Here are a bunch of random thoughts on this thread: <br /> <br />A comparison of the power of steam vs diesel is difficult. Steam engines were often classified by tractive force or drawbar pull. Diesels are classified by horsepower of the prime mover. Although there are equations to convert tractive force or drawbar pull to horsepower, the conversion is not straight foreward.. Therefore a direct comparison of steam vs diesel is difficult at best. <br /> <br />It was commoon to double head or triple head steam locomotives to increase power for heavy loads or to get over mountains. The same is done for diesels with the MU technology. The big difference is in labor. Each steam engine requires an engineer and fireman, whereas a string of diesels with distributed power and even pushers only requires one engineer. A hugh labor savings. Also steam engines needed significantly more servicing than diesels. Tis meant more shops and service crews. Again a higher cost factor. <br /> <br />Moving a given weight over a rail line will require a certain amount of horsepower. This can easily be converted into energy such as BTU required. A perfect example is diesel vs natural gas powered buses. Using the same bus frame, transmission, engine block, etc, the diesel powered bus will get about 30% more miles per gallon than a natural gas bus (natural gas is assumed to be in the liquid state for this comparison at a ratio of 600 standard cubic feet of gas to one gallon of liquified natural gas). The reason for the lower miles per gallion for natural gas is the BTU content of the fuel. Natural gas has approximately 600,000 BTU per gallon while diesel has approximately one million BTU per gallion. Diesel itself also varies. There are various grades and blends of diesel on the market. The railroad may opt for a lower grade of diesel (#2 vs #1) which has less energy content and possible more pollutants vs the higher cost of a higher grade of fuel. The energy in a ton or cubic foot of coal also can be determined through laboratory measurements. Unfortunately all coal is not the same. We have bituminous, sub bituminous, lignite, anthricite, etc and all have different energy content. The powder rover basin coal that UP & BNSF are moving today do not have as much energy as the Applachian coals and the lignite that Texas Utilities burns in Texas has even a lower energy content. So in order to estimate the fuel effeciency of a particular engine (steam or diesel) the sourcing of the fuel used must be known. <br /> <br />Another comparisom could be with electrical power. This represents a insignificant railroad power source in the US (Northwest Corridor and most light rail), but in Europe it is a significant rail energy source. Germany, for example, has approximately 93% of their system electrically powered and the power generation when using dynamic brakes accounts for approximately 17% of their energy consumption. Yes, electrification is expensive. The catenary and substations will cost almost as much as the rail and civil works of a rail line. Electrical power is not pollution free, Except for wind and hydro sources electrical power only displaces the source of pollution from the city to the remote power station. How about more hydro power? We all would like more recreation lakes and water supply sources so build more dams. There is a flaw in this analogy. Hydro sources are a finite commodity. In the US almost all of the possible hydro sources have already been utilized and those that remain cannot be touched for environmental reasons. Think what the outcry would be if Yosemite valley were flooded for a hydro project as was done in the neighboring valley for the Hetch Hetchy reservoir by the City of San Francisco about 80 years ago. Even worse think about stopping all flow over Niagra Falls and running it through turbines to generate electricity. Where would the honeymooners go then? <br /> <br />Energy is not a simple thing. Our world supply is shrinking and becoming harder and more expensive to obrain. What we in the energy industry are seeing is oil and gas comiong from more remote and politically unstable regions of the world. The days of the mid-70s gas lines are just around the corner. <br /> <br />*** Watkins, professional engineer and energy consultant <br /> <br />Pollution concerns enter the picture here. Cities with electric trains have considerable reduced the pollution from railroads by having electric vs hydrocarbon powered trains. This is why New York City outlawed coal fired trains about 100 years ago.
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